Can earlier swimming lessons put a dent in South Florida's high drowning rate?

WEST BOCA – Roxanne Smith will never forget that moment. One second, her 3-year-old son had been happily enjoying a neighbor's pool, floating in an inflatable ring.

The next second, he was gone. Under water.

"It was such a quiet thing," the Boca Raton mom said. "I always thought that if a kid was drowning, there would be screaming and splashing."

She ran through the screen door and fully clothed, jumped in the pool to snatch her son from the bottom, where he had sunk.

Smith's son, who couldn't swim, came close to becoming a sad statistic — Florida leads the nation in the number of childhood drownings. Among the counties, state Health Department statistics show that for the past five years, Broward and Palm Beach counties have consistently been among the five counties with the highest drowning rates.

The state legislature in 2000 passed a law requiring all new pools have either an enclosure, a pool safety cover, exit alarms on doors, or self-closing and self-latching devices.

But, a majority of the state's pools were built before 2000.

So, as drowning continues to kill more than 70 kids, the equivalent of four preschool classrooms, every year, interest is growing in teaching children water survival skills soon after they are crawling.

The American Academy of Pediatrics in 2010 reversed its opinion against swimming lessons until after a child's fourth birthday. Research suggests there is a benefit to earlier lessons, the academy now states.

That comes as vindication to Harvey Barnett of Oviedo, who has spent most of his life researching child drowning prevention — ever since he saw a tot's lifeless body being loaded onto an ambulance after drowning in a drainage ditch.

Barnett, who has a doctorate in psychological foundations from the University of Florida, developed Infant Swimming Resource beginning 46 years ago with the idea that once a child can crawl, he or she can be taught to swim.

His research also has broken down the situations that often lead to drowning, how boys are more likely than girls to drown and that the number of drownings is often related to the number of young children and pools, which heightens the risk factors in South Florida.

"Any time you get out of your normal routine is when accidents tend to happen," he said, saying that's usually when supervision fails.

Erin McGarry, 29, noticed the amount of water when she moved to Parkland from Maryland. That prompted her to look for swim lessons for her two girls, Addison, 2 1/2, and Madelyn, 18 months. She said that at first her husband didn't believe it could be done.

"When I showed him the video (online) of the child swimming, he said, 'No way, that's a child prodigy,'" she said, pulling out her phone and showing off a video of Addison doing the same thing. "She swims like crazy."

For Smith, what happened earlier this summer had her making a "mad dash" to fiind swimming lessons.

Her son Greyson seems to have gotten over his traumatic experience on the bottom of the pool – mostly.

His forehead was crinkled up when Liz Goldring, an Infant Swimming Resource instructor, gently started letting him float on his own Friday.

"Not too far this time," the boy said.

"We're not too far away," she said. "Not for a good swimmer like you."